Chicago Pizza Girl's love of pizza, recipes, and more..

Tag: pizza crust

Taco night (or as we call it in this house, “Effin’ Taco Night!!”) has always been quite popular in the dinner rotation here. So, for quite some time now I’ve been wanting to try my hand at making a mexican pizza. Well, last week I finally got my ideas together, headed to the grocery store and got everything I needed to do it.

The homemade dough was just your basic pizza dough recipe. The one thing I did decide to add to spice things up though was a bit of some cayenne pepper. See dough ingredients below:

While the dough was doing it’s thing in the bread maker, I got all my chopping and prepping done ahead of time. First, I cooked up 1 lb. of ground sirloin and then added a packet of hot n’ spicy taco seasoning. I also warmed up the refried beans in a sauce pan so that they would be easier to spread on top of the dough. Once the dough was ready to roll out, the first thing I put down was the refried beans. Next, I spread out the salsa on top of the beans and sprinkled some crushed red pepper on top of that. I purposely bought a salsa that wasn’t too chunky but not too runny/watery either. It had a great consistency similar to what you would get in a mexican restaurant. Then, I added the black olives, chives and diced tomatoes. And finally I shredded the cheddar and pepper jack cheese and covered the pizza.

I cooked the pizza at 385 degrees for 19 minutes. The pizza looked great when it came out of the oven. I have to admit I was very excited yet nervous to try this pizza. I really had no idea if I was going to love it or hate it. To my surprise, it tasted excellent!! Only a few things I would change up to make it even better the next time I make this. This pizza would be a perfect candidate for using the new cast iron pizza pan we have (this time I just used our regular pan). The cast iron really gives the crust a crispy crunch to it which I felt would have helped this pizza. I may have put on a little bit too much salsa because I felt that if I didn’t eat the pizza quickly, it just might get a little too soggy. So I think the extra crunchiness that the cast iron pan provides would have been great.

Another thing I forgot to add that I bought for this little experiment was black beans. Oops! There’s always next time. Also, I wanted to add my favorite taco sauce, Ortega (medium or hot), but was worried with the salsa AND the taco sauce that it might get even MORE soggy. So I skipped the Ortega sauce this time. I think next time, I might mix up a combination of salsa with the Ortega sauce and use that. Another thing I thought might be fun to add on top (maybe after it’s done cooking) would be crushed up tortilla chips. But I haven’t decided how I feel about that topping yet. Would it really help the pizza? Or am I just gettin’ crazy now?

Needless to say, Effin’ Taco Pizza night was a success! And I think warming up a piece of the leftovers on the stovetop in a frying pan would a great idea for this pizza. I think that it would help crisp up the bottom of the crust a little more when going to reheat it. Now all you need is a margarita and you’d be set!

On the menu tonight.. pizza! I don’t know what it is about Sundays, but I always seem to want to make pizza on Sunday nights. So we got out the good ole bread maker and started on the dough. The crust on this one was exceptionally good this time. Here’s what was we put in the crust so you can see why.

The whole time the bread maker was doing it’s thing, it smelled sooooo good. You could really smell the garlic. I was really looking forward to this one. So once the dough was ready it was time for the toppings. We included: pepperoni, ham, bacon, olives, mushrooms and minced garlic. The cheese we used was mozzarella and a mix of cheddar and monterey jack. The oven was preheated and the pizza was ready to go in. Eric said, “Pick a number between 1 and 60.” I picked 40. So the timer was set for 18:40. Haha. Must have been a perfect number because the pizza came out just right. With the cheese slightly browned just the way I like it.

The pizza turned out just as I suspected. Delicious! You could really taste the garlic in the crust. And let me tell you, I am a huge fan of garlic. If I had cloves of garlic on hand I would have roasted them and threw those right on there too. Next time! I could also taste that it had a bit of a kick to it from the Mrs. Dash extra spicy seasoning and the pepper we added to the crust. I always add crushed red pepper on top of my pizza as well. What can I say, I’m a big fan of spiciness.

The crust was great this time. It had just the right amount of crunch on the bottom and yet it was soft on the inside. I have to say, this pizza had some girth to it too. And we even halved the dough to save for another time. Just look at that the loads of melted cheese on there! I’d say this pizza was a success. I can’t wait to have leftovers for lunch tomorrow!